


Too Fast

by onetiredboy



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Based off a comic, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining, Sad Crowley (Good Omens), Softness, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 07:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19459525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: And how many times, equally, had Aziraphale taken a step back, had let Crowley ache for him and give nothing in return. It had been 52 years and still every spare second of Crowley’s time, he thought about it:"You go too fast for me, Crowley."//Based off a brilliant comic done by @_scaramacai on Instagram, and a bunch of A/C headcanons I've picked up along the way.





	Too Fast

_You can stay at my place, if you like._

It’s like this little game they’d been playing over the last 6000 years. How many hidden messages could they fit into normal conversation? How many times could Crowley lay himself bare and let Aziraphale pick him apart, take what he needed, let the rest go.

_We could go off together._

_We can run away together—Alpha Centauri!_

And how many times, equally, had Aziraphale taken a step back, had let Crowley ache for him and give nothing in return. It had been 52 years and still every spare second of Crowley’s time, he thought about it:

_You go too fast for me, Crowley._

And here they were. Past the end of the world. Crowley unlocked the front door of his flat and swung it open.

“At long last,” he drawled theatrically, walking backwards into his flat, his arms out like a smartly dressed evil museum guide, “I give you Mr. Anthony J. Crowley’s luxurious abode.”

“Ah. Still unsure on the ‘J’, are we?” Aziraphale asked as he followed Crowley in, “I’m telling you; I think James would suit you quite sharply.”

“I’m still stuck on the time you suggested Janthony,” Crowley responded, and Aziraphale chuckled.

“Plus,” Crowley added, “There’s nothing wrong with changing things up every now and again. Maybe it’ll be James today, maybe Jackson tomorrow.”

“ _Jackson,”_ Aziraphale echoed, “Now that’s a thought.”

Banter, easy and simple. The way they bounced off each other was an art that had been delicately honed over several millennia. If Crowley wanted, he could probably predict Aziraphale’s responses word for word. It was good, this thing they shared. It was being friends hard enough that they didn’t have to be anything else. It was driving a Bentley though fire and thinking very hard that it was all okay.

“I can’t believe I’ve never been here before,” Aziraphale said, even though Crowley knew he’d been avoiding coming here for half a century. A bookshop wasn’t personal. Coming to someone’s flat was like admitting. Like saying, _‘I want to know more of you. I want to know where you sleep, where you live, where you let yourself be only you.’_ They spent so much of their time around each other being held-back versions of themselves.

Crowley was so good at not thinking about these things, usually. He frowned at his own thoughts and cleared his throat loudly.

“Alcohol, angel?”

“Ohh,” Aziraphale sighed, “I don’t know. It’s been such a long day already.”

“You’re not usually one to turn down a drink. Especially not when there’s reason to celebrate.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale ran a hand through that wonderful hair, “Sometimes it’s nice to celebrate by… taking a _break_ from so much noise and warmth and clamour.”

They wandered slowly through Crowley’s flat towards the living room, where he would be able to set up a movie for Aziraphale, maybe, and then go and fall asleep. Not on the same couch, no, no matter how nice that would be. No matter how close he wanted to get. No matter how much he wanted to collapse and get as close to crying as snakes can get and whisper, “ _I thought I lost you, Aziraphale. I thought you were lost.”_

“Oh—” Aziraphale gushed suddenly, and in a flash he was gone from Crowley’s side. “Oh, _Crowley!_ You never told me you had plants!”

Crowley blushed immediately. He couldn’t be sure if the embarrassment was because he has plants in the first place, or the thought of Aziraphale figuring out what he does with them. He followed Aziraphale into the room slowly, “Ah.”

Aziraphale had flicked on a light overhead, and Crowley glared up at it. It was ruining his aesthetic.

“Crowley, these are—wow. You know, I tried having houseplants of my own once, in the bookshop.”

Crowley remembered. He’d lost track of the amount of times he’d broken into the bookshop through the back window to water them when Aziraphale forgot, and hiss threats of what would happen if they didn’t realise the privilege they had, being brought up by a real angel. But even demon threats and the occasional water can’t save plants that are otherwise totally neglected.

“I just couldn’t get them to grow…” Aziraphale sighed, and Crowley bit his tongue to stop himself from saying ‘ _well, maybe if you’d used a little fertilizer every now and then…’_

“But these…” Aziraphale stroked his fingers across a leaf, “These are the most gorgeous plants I’ve ever seen, Crowley.”

Crowley hunched his shoulders up. He glared around at his plants from behind his sunglasses, daring them to get any ideas. “Come on, angel, let’s keep moving,” he grumbled

“Oh?” Aziraphale asked, but Crowley just pushed past him, so that Aziraphale had no choice but to follow.

Crowley’s bedroom was at the very back of the flat. His bed had some of the most expensive sheets in the world, sleek black and sinfully comfortable. Sleeping was something that Crowley prided himself on the most. He was exceptionally good at it, and he didn’t believe there was such a thing as too much.

“So this is where you are when I don’t see you for months at a time, hm?” Aziraphale asked, a bitten back laugh in his voice.

“I don’t know how you live without sleeping, angel.”

“I don’t know how you live without reading,” Aziraphale countered.

“That reminds me…” Crowley mumbled. Beside the bed was a shelf. He ducked to his knees and searched around on the bottom shelf for a moment. A second later, he stood up again, putting the pile of books on the top of the shelf. “I bought these to try and… well, I thought maybe... maybe I’d try it out,” Not entirely a lie. He’d bought them hoping he’d read them all and be able to impress Aziraphale, “But I just couldn’t read them, so I thought I’d keep them just in case you ever… came around.” Underneath his sunglasses, his eyes were darting around the room.

Aziraphale stepped over beside Crowley. He looked down and brushed over a cover with his fingers. He smiled, “ _Sense and Sensibility._ You read romance, Crowley?”

Crowley froze up. “I, uh… well, I tried.” _Tried to learn. Tried to figure out what you like._ “You can take whichever ones you want.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Aziraphale turned from the books, “But I was rather thinking I might give your thing a try.”

“Sleeping?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale nodded, “Like I said, a lot has happened over the last few days, all rather stressful. You’ve said in the past that sleeping can help you sort things out.” He gestured to himself. There was the soft tinkling of angel magic. Aziraphale had chosen a striped flannelette set of pyjamas. Crowley smiled.

“You’re going to get hot in that,” he warned, but then he was wearing a tank top himself and a pair of long silk pants.

“Do you usually wear your sunglasses when you sleep?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley grinned, “ _Yeah_ , angel, all the ti—”

He stopped talking very fast. Aziraphale’s fingers grazed over the skin on his temples. Slowly, the glasses came off.

“You have the _most_ beautiful eyes.” Just loud enough for Crowley to hear. A secret between them.

Crowley said nothing. He couldn’t. Six thousand years, and this was the closest he’d ever gotten to hearing Aziraphale say any of the things he’d always wanted to hear.

_You’re dear to me, Crowley. You’re not some beast of a demon. You’re lovable as you are. You’ve never done anything wrong._

Aziraphale’s thumbs brushed over the skin on his cheekbones. He smiled, “I do miss your long hair.”

“I’ll grow it out,” Crowley said, too fast. ( _You go too fast…)_

“You know you don’t have to be more human for me,” Aziraphale’s thumbs brushed the corners of his eyes, “I think you’re beautiful naturally.”

Crowley had stopped breathing. He stopped trying to change his eyes. The yellowness of his irises spread to the rest of his eye. He felt the pupil in the middle pull, widen just slightly. Snake eyes.

“Wonderful,” Aziraphale whispered.

There was silence. Crowley didn’t want to say something first. ( _Too fast for me, Crowley.)_

“You know,” Aziraphale said, “When the world was ending, I kept thinking you’d finally confront me.”

Silence forgotten. Crowley frowned, “Confront you?”

Aziraphale bit his lip. He nodded slightly, “Finally give up on me. Give me an ultimatum: make a move or forget it. But you didn’t. You just kept… waiting for me.”

“I’d wait until the end of the Earth,” Crowley whispered.

“You did,” Aziraphale’s hand, brushing over the side of his face. Aziraphale’s nose bumping against Crowley’s. Crowley felt his stomach drop to his feet. Aziraphale spoke so close that Crowley could feel the breath from his lips, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For making you wait.”

Aziraphale was kissing him.

Crowley’s heart remembered to beat suddenly, so fast and hard that it almost threw him off guard. It took him a second to remember what he was supposed to do – what he’d planned on doing whenever this moment ended up happening. He closed his eyes, cupped Aziraphale’s face.

Six thousand years. It was as wonderful as Crowley had ever imagined.

Aziraphale pulled away. His face was sprinkled with pink, his eyes soft.

“ _Angel,_ ” Crowley whispered.

“You know, my dear, the humans started using that as a pet name because of you.”

“I know.”

Aziraphale smiled. Crowley couldn’t take it. He pushed forward this time, kissing Aziraphale before he could say anything else.

Aziraphale’s hands went to Crowley’s shoulders. Then he took a step back, and the kiss broke as he sat down suddenly on the end of Crowley’s bed. But then he pulled him down, and Crowley put one arm on the bed beside him and the other on the side of Aziraphale’s face and kissed him again.

The human body, Crowley had realised over the millennium, was an endlessly fascinating thing. Right now some part of it he’d never known existed before was beginning to stir, just behind his stomach. It was a warm and dangerous and strangely human feeling, and it made him push a little harder into Aziraphale. The angel keened. His lips parted against Crowley’s and Crowley felt the lick of his tongue against his lips— _oh._

The feeling in the back of his stomach washed through his whole body suddenly, making him shiver. It wasn’t sinful—Crowley had always thought this would be some kind of a sin, arousal, but instead of the prickle of a sin being committed dancing over his back it felt—well, it felt… it felt like the most holy thing Crowley had ever done.

Aziraphale pulled back just enough to whisper, “ _Crowley…”_ before he kissed him again, and Crowley parted his lips to let Aziraphale’s tongue in.

 _I almost lost him,_ Crowley thought suddenly, _A few hours ago, I thought I’d lost him, and now we’re here._ He was a Bentley driving through flame, and he was just beginning to feel the heat crackle though his metal and plastic.

Crowley had never had sex before. He’d tempted lust out of people, sure, and he knew he was meant to, maybe. But the closest he’d ever got was impulsively kissing Freddie Mercury, once, after he and Aziraphale had had a fight. But it can’t be that hard. He was a demon. He was meant to know how to do this.

“Mmmhh…” Aziraphale groaned into his mouth. One hand lifted and pressed against Crowley’s chest, just above the collar of his tank top.

He could do this. He would. _I thought I lost you,_ Crowley thought. The flames were getting hotter, his metal was warping. _Six thousand years and suddenly, all at once._

_You go too fast… too fast... too fast…_

Aziraphale’s hand pulled down at the collar of Crowley’s shirt, and suddenly Crowley felt it. Stronger than the love. Stronger than that glorious feeling in the back of his stomach.

Suddenly, Anthony Crowley felt very, very, very afraid. He was a Bentley that had been on fire for the past three days without realising, and hadn’t yet had the chance to fall to pieces. A tremble ran through him.

_He’s going too fast for me._

He was trying to keep kissing, but something must have changed. Aziraphale pulled away. “Crowley…” he said, and his voice was so soft, “Are you okay?”

He could still feel his breath on his lips. “Yeah,” Crowley answered fast. His eyes slid away from Aziraphale’s questioning gaze to the side of the room. His lip trembled, “I mean… no, but…” His whole body trembled, “Can—can we just talk?”

He couldn’t look back at Aziraphale, but the look that would’ve been on his face if he did was sketched into the back of Crowley’s eyelids anyway; the glossy eyes, the tiny little frown.

“Yeah…” Aziraphale soothed, smiling, “I would love that, my dear.”

Snakes can’t cry. The have tear ducts, but the liquid from them gets drained away down the back of the throat like a bad runny nose. The best they can do is get their eyes all watery. A pathetic whimper found its way up Crowley’s throat, the room going funny behind watery vision.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale fussed, “Oh, you silly boy, come on now… Here,” and he pushed himself back on the bed and pulled the blankets down, “Come hop in.”

Crowley went around the side of the bed and slipped into the blankets. His body was shaking, and Aziraphale pulled him down beside him.

“Shh now, shh, my love,” Aziraphale tucked himself underneath one of Crowley’s arms, sliding one of his legs between Crowley’s and pulling the blankets up over them.

It was warm, comfortable. Crowley closed his eyes and saw an explosion, bits of his car flying through the air. Then he felt Aziraphale’s chest moving against his ribs, the soft breathing.

“Shhh,” Aziraphale’s hand on his chest, stroking softly, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Time is strange when you’ve been alive for 6000 years. When a lot changes over the course of a few weeks in a human life it can be a bit to handle, but to a celestial being, 100 years feels like a week and everything had just changed in Crowley’s life in 48 measly hours. He had no car. He’d lost the support of Hell – in fact, he’d become their biggest enemy. He had lost his best friend.

Crowley focused on Aziraphale. No, he hadn’t lost Aziraphale after all. He made himself stop breathing for a moment, then started again, decidedly calmer. He closed his eyes for a long time and then sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley and Aziraphale said at the same time.

“Sorry?” Aziraphale half sat up, one of his hands brushing over Crowley’s face, “My dear, what on Earth do you have to be sorry about?”

“Being wretched,” Crowley muttered, and Aziraphale tutted his tongue at him disapprovingly.

“Anthony Jackson Crowley,” he chided, and despite himself, Crowley laughed breathlessly, “You are _not_ wretched.”

“Did you know that I thought—” Crowley spoke before he could stop himself. His throat closed over. His eyes watered again. “I thought you were—”

“Oh… Crowley, is this about the bookshop?” Aziraphale leaned his head down into Crowley’s shoulder, “I’m so sorry. I am so, _so_ sorry…”

Crowley shook his head, “I’m not—you don’t have to apologise, angel, I just… I think I need some time to… to…”

Crowley didn’t know how to finish his sentence. But they’d known each other for so long. Aziraphale could probably predict what it was that he was trying to say. “Of course,” Aziraphale soothed, “Of course, Crowley.”

“I don’t want you to think I don’t want—”

“Never,” Aziraphale interrupted. “Never.”

Crowley closed his eyes. Aziraphale had had this same smell for six thousand years, a smell deeper than new cologne and different clothes. A smell like clouds and fresh rain on grass. A smell like love. Slowly, he felt himself begin to calm. He’d been moving so fast for so long, he’d barely gotten the time to begin to realise that this was real. That Aziraphale was real, solid, against him. And he would be for as long as he needed.

For the last six thousand years, they’d been playing the same game. Little words, innocent phrases, that were tied up in context to mean so much more.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley smiled. He didn’t say _I love you._ _You don’t have to wait anymore, I will love you until the world around us is taken apart piece by piece._

He didn’t have to.

“Yeah, angel,” Crowley said, “I’m alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> HNNG <3 thank u to @_scaramacai for letting me be inspired by their brilliant fic. if you enjoyed this you honestly Have 2 go check out their comic as well as their other art cause it makes me. exblode. and pls consider leaving a kudos or reading my other work!!


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